1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a surgical fastening device for applying surgical fasteners to body tissue. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a surgical device and access device suitable for introducing that surgical device into hollow tissue organs.
2. Background of Related Art
Anastomosis is the surgical joining of separate hollow organ sections. Typically, an anastomosis procedure follows surgery in which a diseased or defective section of hollow tissue is removed and the remaining end sections are to be joined. Depending on the desired anastomosis procedure, the end sections may be joined by either circular, end-to-end or side-to-side organ reconstruction methods.
In a circular anastomosis procedure, the two ends of the organ sections are joined by means of a fastener instrument which drives a circular array of fasteners, e.g., staples, through the end section of each organ section and simultaneously cores any tissue interior of the driven circular array of staples to free the tubular passage. Examples of instruments for performing circular anastomosis of hollow organs are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,053,390; 5,588,579; 5,119,983; 5,005,749; 4,646,745; 4,576,167; and 4,473,077, each of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. Typically, these instruments include an elongated shaft having a handle portion at a proximal end to actuate the instrument and a fastener holding component disposed at a distal end. An anvil assembly including an anvil rod with attached anvil head is mounted to the distal end of the instrument adjacent the fastener holding component. Opposed end portions of tissue of the hollow organ(s) to be fastened are clamped between the anvil head and the fastener holding component. The clamped tissue is joined by driving one or more fasteners from the fastener holding component so that the ends of the fasteners pass through the tissue and are deformed by the anvil head. An annular knife is concurrently advanced to core tissue of the hollow organ to free a tubular passage within the organ.
A surgical fastening device is inserted through a naturally-occurring orifice or an incision formed in e.g., the abdomen. Additionally, in many anastomosis procedures, portions of the anvil assembly and/or fastener holding component may come into contact with, e.g., diseased tissue or septic materials at a working site which are undesirable to be spread to other portions of the body.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system including a surgical device and an associated access device which simultaneously facilitates access through an incision and maintains a barrier between the site and/or hollow organ and the surgical device.